Conclusion

As you have seen, this note and the protocols it describes have plenty of room for improvement. Now, as the end-user of this function, you may have a naturally strong and negative reaction to these crude mechanisms, tempting you to send messages decrying my lack of humanity, decency, and legal parentage to the atlas or atlas-comm mailing lists. While this is quite understandable, keep in mind that I'm not a very understanding guy, and am also a gigantic baby that pouts when my tender feelings are hurt. So, the proper bitch format involves

• First thanking me for spending time in hell getting things to their present crude state
• Then, supplying your constructive ideas

For a higher overview of things, scope out the paper ATLAS/doc/atlas_over.ps, which describes the ideas behind ATLAS, including several that are touched upon only lightly in this note.